Progress in Human Geography ​31(5) (2007)

pp. 616–637 Christine E. Dunn*

Participatory GIS – a
people’s GIS?

Geography Department, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE,

UK

Abstract: ​Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning of applications of GIS which grant
legitimacy to indigenous geographical knowledge as well as to ‘offi cial’ spatial data. By
incorporating various forms of community participation these newer framings of Geographical
Information Systems as ‘Participatory GIS’ (PGIS) offer a response to the critiques of GIS
which were prevalent in the 1990s. This paper reviews PGIS in the context of the
‘democratization of GIS’. It explores aspects of the control and ownership of geographical
information, representations of local and indigenous knowledge, scale and scaling up,
web-based approaches and some potential future technical and academic directions.

Key words: ​GIS, participatory GIS, public participation.

I Introduction
As the social, political, ethical and
institutional dimensions of Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) have come
increasingly into question, dialogues
around ‘critical GIS’ and ‘GIS and society’
(Sheppard, 1995; Harris and Weiner,
1996) have become fi rmly established
both in the literature and through fora such
as listservers and dedicated conference
sessions. Debates around the theoretical
assumptions and social implications of GIS
as a technol ogy and Geographical
Information Science (GIScience) as a
conceptual framework or discipline are
thus well rehearsed and have been the
subject of a number of recent sum mary
works (Pickles, 1995; 1999; Schuurman,
2000). One tangible shift in the light of such
critiques has been the growth of a more
soci
ally aware type of GIS which gives greater
privilege and legitimacy to local or
indigenous
*Email: c.e.dunn@durham.ac.uk
spatial knowledge. Variously labelled as,
​ articipatory GIS (PGIS), Public
inter alia, P
Participation GIS (PPGIS), and Community
integrated GIS,​1 ​these newer approaches
are context- and issue-driven rather than
technology-led and seek to emphasize
community involvement in the production
and/or use of geographical information. A
Participatory GIS celebrates the multi
plicity of geographical realities rather than
 the disembodied, objective and technical
‘solutions’ which have tended to charac
terize many conventional GIS applications.
Of relevance here are the many and varied
interpretations of what constitutes a GIS
although a concise defi nition becomes
more difficult to articulate as the
boundaries between spatial technologies
become increasingly blurred. Goodchild
(2000: 6) defines GIS as ‘a computing
application

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​617

listserver discussion groups. It has been
applied in a wide range of contexts
capable of creating, storing, manipulating, including urban planning and revitalization
visualizing, and analyzing geographic infor with neigh
mation’. Although some definitions of GIS bourhood groups (Craig and Elwood, 1998;
recognize the importance of social and Ghose, 2001; Casey and Pederson, 2002;
institutional dimensions (Chrisman, 1999) Elwood, 2002a; 2002b); managing conflict
most, as Couclelis (2003) notes, focus on over access to land and other natural
software functionality (particularly spatial resources (Weiner ​et al​., 1995; Harris and
data analysis and visualization) and this Weiner, 1998; 2002; Kyem, 2002; 2004;
forms an important component in Weiner and Harris, 2003); resource
proprietary GIS software marketing by management and service access in ‘First
companies such as Environmental Nations’ or indigenous peoples (Bond,
Systems Research Institute (ESRI) a major 2002; Laituri, 2002); land-use and natural
high-end and technically led commercial resource planning (Ventura ​et al.​, 2002;
vendor which leads the market in supplying Walker ​et al.,​ 2002); and conservation and
GIS products (Merrick, 2003; Sieber, 2004; environmental management (Meredith ​et
Longley ​et al.​ , 2005). With calls for a more al.,​ 2002; Sieber, 2002; Tulloch, 2002).
democratic GIS, other defining capacities Despite this rapid progress it could be
have come to the fore such as an argued, however, that use of a more
‘empowerment functionality’ in which socially aware GIS is of limited interest
indigenous technical and spatial knowledge (Abbot ​et al​., 1998; Williams and Dunn,
is regarded as equally legitimate as that of 2003). Indeed Kwan (2002a) proposes
‘experts’ (McCall and Minang, 2005). In this that, despite significant progress in helping
sense, non-profit GIS developers such as us move away from the largely
Clark Labs​2 ​with a focus on applications for antagonistic critical discourses around GIS
the developing world offer a contrasting during the 1990s, insights from Public
ethos. Participation GIS ‘have yet to bear signifi
PGIS, as both concept and tool, has bur cantly upon GIS practices in geographic
geoned in recent years with dedicated research at large and on the relationship
books (Craig ​et al.,​ 2002b), special journal between GIS and critical geographies in
editions (​Cartography and Geographic particular’ (p. 645). Weiner ​et al. ​(2002: 5)
Information Systems 1 ​ 998; ​Cartographica add that while ‘the critique of GIS has
2001; ​Environment and Planning B ​2001; helped to launch a fl ood of alternative
Journal of the Urban and Regional community-based GIS applica tions’ the
Information Systems Association [URISA] development of PPGIS should not serve to
2003), conferences (eg, URISA’s Annual diminish the theoretical and philo sophical
Public Participation GIS Conference) and debates around GIS. This seems un likely
 given the conceptual relationship between
alternative forms of GIS and critical
discourses around use of the technology.
Indeed the continued discussion of this
relationship seems essential if participatory
forms of GIS are to retain credibility in the
wider disciplinary set
tings of human geography and beyond. Ten
years after the term PPGIS was fi rst used
(Schroeder, 1996), it seems timely to
evaluate what a Participatory GIS has to
offer for democratic spatial
decision-making. This review seeks to refl
ect on some of the developments and
frustrations embedded in attempts to
mould conventional GIS into a technology
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618 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
the intention is to explore the potentially
fragile and transitory nature of Participatory
GIS in a world where conventional GIS still
has the stronger foothold and where recent
developments in related ICTs bring
geograph
ical information into the public mainstream.
The emphasis here is on how PGIS
addresses some of the criticisms of
conventional GIS, and how users engage
with distributed geo
graphical information. The paper begins
with a brief contextual positioning of
Participatory GIS before outlining its
diverse meanings. It then considers some
of the simultaneous conflicts and
opportunities which are em
bedded in PGIS and the information it con
tains before discussing issues of local and
indigenous knowledge in the context of
spatial ‘accuracy’ and visual representation.
The importance of scale, questions raised
by web-based PGIS, and issues of
evaluation and sustainability are then
considered before posing some future
prospects.
II Starting points: historical and spatial
contexts
In chronological terms, efforts to devise a
more socially inclusive GIS have not
with a social conscience. In so doing the
paper considers four main strands in the
context of PGIS development: control and
ownership of geographical information;
representing local and indigenous spatial
knowledge; the democratization of GIS;
and sustainability. The paper does not
attempt to repeat the detailed history of the
debates and critiques around the theory
and practice behind GIS: these have been
covered else where (Pickles, 1999;
Schuurman, 2000). Nor does it seek to
provide an exhaustive review of the
practical applications of PGIS (for which
see, for example, Craig ​et al.​ , 2002b).
Rather
occurred solely as a direct reaction to the
critiques of GIS. In the mid-1990s
pioneering attempts to devise alternative
approaches, notably through work by
Daniel Weiner and Trevor Harris (Weiner
et al.​, 1995) operated alongside criticisms
of GIS as a tool of control and a technology
of surveillance (Pickles, 1995). Indeed, the
mid to late 1990s witnessed positive
collaborative ventures between GIS
researchers and its critics: see, for
instance, work by Harris and colleagues in
Pickles’ seminal text ​Ground truth (​ Harris
et al.​, 1995) and input from John Pickles
and Michael Curry in the National Center
for Geographic Information and Analysis
(NCGIA) specialist meeting in 1996 (Harris
and Weiner, 1996). Similarly there have
been fruitful collaborations between GIS
practitioners and development studies
scholars for applications in lower-income
countries (Dunn ​et al.​ , 1997; Abbot ​et al​.,
1998; Rambaldi ​et al​., 2006). The scene
for deeper
and more critical reflections had been set
earlier than this, though, a fundamental de
termining point being the debates between
Stan Openshaw and Peter Taylor in the
early 1990s (Taylor, 1990; Taylor and
Overton, 1991; Openshaw, 1991; 1992).
Although per haps not necessarily
 recognized as such at the time, these even ‘PPGIS culture might prove difficult to
earlier exchanges paved the way translate to other places and
for ‘alternative’ approaches to GIS. But organizations’. As Kwan (2002a) argues,
what of the genesis of these alter natives however, although the nature of
and, if they are to be more context driven, conventional GIS is historically and
how do their origins prepare them to spatially contingent, this should not
achieve this? Obermeyer (1998) explains exclude possibilities for reimagin ing
the characteristics of early conventional alternative visions of GIS. Indeed she sug
GIS in terms of the organizational, gests that ‘one of the crucial tasks for
technical and theoretical conditions of the feminist GIS users/researchers is to break
time in which they were developed – the positivist/ masculinist connection that
‘largely white males employed in academic was historically constituted’ (p. 648).
and governmental institutions in North
America and Europe’ (Obermeyer, 1998: III PGIS and participation:
65). One implication here is that the further meanings and representations
away from these conditions a GIS is Just as there is no single interpretation of
implemented, the less successful and the term ‘GIS’, a simple and concise
appropriate it is likely to be. Of course definition of Participatory GIS is equally, if
partici patory approaches to GIS come with not more, elusive, although it is clear that
their own values and assumptions and, like recognition of PPGIS as more than a
most GIS, emerged largely from a North technology is essential (Tulloch, 2003).
American base. Given this starting point, Indeed, Aberley and Sieber (2002) have
then, as Sieber (2003: 54) comments, devised 14 guiding principles

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​619

Eachren and Brewer, 2004; Schafer ​et al​.,
2005; Balram and Dragic´evic´, 2006;
for PPGIS including, ​inter alia:​ aspects of Jankowski ​et al.​, 2006). As Schlossberg
community development, capacity building and Shuford (2005: 15) comment, ‘the
and public access to official data; inclusion more one looks to find a common thread or
of marginalized groups; organizational appli meaning about what PPGIS exactly
cation through partnerships and practical means, one quickly realizes that guiding
implementation through a range of formats definitions are not to be found and that
and data types; and links to social theory utilizating [sic] the term ‘PPGIS’ is
and qualitative research tools. This inconsistent across applications and uses’.
complexity and diversity is not only an That said, it is useful to identify those
indication of the many diverse approaches dimensions of Participatory GIS which differ
which PGIS encompasses but is also entiate it from conventional Geographical
reflected in the variety of labels given to Information Systems. PGIS arises from a
these, and related, alternative forms of recognition that traditional GIS represent
GIS, each with its own history and mean an overly simple world-view in terms of two
ing: Participatory GIS, Public Participation interrelated aspects: the type of information
GIS, Community-integrated GIS (Harris and that is fed in and on which spatial decision
Weiner, 1998), GIS-2 (Harris and Weiner, making is based, and the limited source(s)
1996; Schroeder, 1996; Pickles, 1999), GIS of that information. In terms of information
for participation (GIS-P; Cinderby, 1999), types, one understanding of PGIS is as a
Par ticipatory 3-Dimensional Modelling means of integrating local and indigenous
(P3DM; Rambaldi and Callosa-Tarr, 2000; knowledge with ‘expert’ data. The inclusion
2002), Bottom-Up GIS (BUGIS; Talen, of social information has helped to expose
2000), and collaborative the narrowness of conventional GIS and
GIS/geocollaboration (Mac has opened up a platform for ‘alternative’
visual izations of space, place and reality.
In terms of
information sources, a PGIS entails
widening the notion of participants or
‘users’ to include ‘the public’ and,
particularly, marginalized groups. Thus the
term ‘public participation GIS’ was derived
from the common use among planners of
the notion of involving an element of
citizen participation (Obermeyer, 1998).
PGIS involves local communities in the cre
ation of information to be fed into the GIS
and subsequently used in spatial decision
making which affects them. Critical to this
widening participation, however, is the
need for PGIS scholars and practitioners
to be more explicit about who ‘the public’ is
and what ‘participation’ means if
appropriate goals are to be achieved
(Schlossberg and Shuford, 2005). Levels,
or ‘intensities’, of par ticipation (and hence
control) in PGIS vary from ‘manipulative
and passive’ participation through to locally
initiated or self-mobilized action (McCall
and Minang, 2005). Since conventional
GIS technology remains a core component
of PGIS, it may play ‘a strained role in
enabling democratic participation’ (Sieber,
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620 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
(Rambaldi and Callosa-Tarr, 2000; 2002).
In this approach, participants use low-cost
mat erials (wool, cardboard, coloured map
pins) to construct, over a period of several
days, a large model (up to 5 m long) with
suffi cient vertical exaggeration to allow
meaningful interpretation and discussion.
This tangible enactment of map-making
has clear parallels with ‘mapping as
performance’ in which a process-based
approach to cartography takes on renewed
importance (Perkins, 2003). Other
approaches combine digital spatial
information tools such as remote sensing
and spatial analysis with participatory
research methods such as participatory
mapping and diagramming, and use of
photographs, video clips and oral histories
through sound. This may involve public
2003: 54). Currently the differing notions of
spatial accuracy which are implicit among
the diverse types of geographical
information involved tend, though, to result
in applications which employ only basic
tech nical operations through spatial
analysis. Future designs may, however,
incorporate more sophisticated spatial
understanding capabilities and issue
management technol ogy (Nyerges ​et al​.,
2002).
A Participatory GIS then is characterized
by its inclusion of some of the ‘messiness’
and fuzziness of much geographical
information and of human-environment
relations. In terms of implementation of
these complexities, a number of different
approaches have been proposed and
there is no single PGIS tool. Thus P3DM
integrates spatial information and
indigenous geographical knowledge in the
form of three-dimensional, large-scale
physical relief models subsequently
captured in digital form through the use of
high-resolution digital cameras and
on-screen digitizing at a scale to meet the
purpose of the exercise
participation through spatial multimedia
and virtual environments such as video
conferencing (Shiffer, 2002). Others, such
as that adopted by Hassan (2005) for a
case study of safe drinking water planning
in Bangladesh, use GIS technology to
overlay participatory mental maps derived
from group discussions with official
administrative and resource maps. Thus,
in the same way that levels of public
participation in PGIS vary, so too do the
levels of direct public involvement in
utilizing GIS technology and manipulating
digital spatial data.
IV Politics and power relations:
whose PGIS?
Of fundamental importance to Participatory
GIS implementations are questions of
access, control and ownership of
geographical infor mation and outputs. The
ways in which these issues are played out,
however, depend on cultural, institutional
and locational fram ings, the intended
objectives and user charac teristics, and
the broader questions of political
embeddedness. Harris and Weiner (1998)
advocate aiming for a
‘community-integrated’ GIS in recognition
of the fact that, although communities may
increasingly participate in GIS-related
projects, they lack the political, fi nancial
and technical control. A community
integrated GIS acknowledges the ‘expert’
nature of GIS as a technology but
enhances citizen access and participation
and, hence, the democratic potential.
Sieber (2001) calls for a formalized
approach to addressing questions about
ownership, access, expertise and ac
countability whereby PPGIS the concept
as well as PPGIS the tool is recognized: a
more inclusive ‘PPGIScience’. Distinctions
between tools and concepts, though, may
be blurred as tools are incorporated within
the context of use.
The political dimensions of geographical
information have been brought into particu
larly sharp focus by the potential uses of
GIS in surveillance and control. The very
act of intro ducing GIS, whether
participatory or not, in specifi c settings
adds new technological and political
dimensions which, in themselves, can
serve to alter existing power relations
(Weiner ​et al.,​ 2002; Robbins, 2003). As
Aitken and Michel (1995: 17) point out,
‘participation in the creation of GIS
knowledge does not necessarily give any
power to those involved in, and affected
by, the decision-making’. This may open up
a Pandora’s box of confl ict within or
between different stakeholder groups:
indeed Harris and Weiner (1998: 74) note
that ‘a confl ictual GIS would be an ex
pectation’. Similarly, Robbins (2003: 249)
argues for techniques which ‘elicit
competing localities and ground truths, and
so enunciate and draw confl ict to the
center of attention’. Transforming vaguely
demarcated bound aries on the ground into
clearly defi ned lines on a map is
potentially damaging in that con fl ict over
land, for example, may be created where it
otherwise did not exist. By drawing
attention to contrasting knowledges and
power imbalances, a Participatory GIS car
ries a greater onus in terms of justifying its
composition and approach and should be
implemented with a health warning since,
as Weiner ​et al. (​ 2002) point out, PPGIS
projects can still be exploitative. In the
same way that these authors warned us a
decade ago that ‘in the mode of “top-down”
data creation and “expert” policy-making,
GIS empowers the powerful and
disenfranchises the weak’

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​621

decision-making with ‘offi cial’ agencies on
a more equal basis, or at least serve to
(Weiner ​et al.,​ 1995: 32), in commenting on raise public awareness. For a case study
a set of 18 PPGIS case studies they noted eliciting citizens’ views of air pollution in
recently that ‘in all regions … there is UK cities, Cinderby and Forrester (2005)
evidence of the simultaneous describe how participants found that
empowerment and marginalization of simply having access to, and looking at,
people and communities’ (Weiner ​et al.​, large scale Ordnance Survey maps was
2002: 11). interesting in itself. Other examples have
Cinderby (1999) argues, however, that shown that ‘offi cial’ or digital
the ability to integrate multiple perspectives representation of a local area can lead to
in a visual spatial medium offers a powerful community participants viewing their
representation which should enable local environs in new ways. Thus Weiner ​et al.
groups to engage in spatial (1995: 34) reported that during mapping ex
ercises in village workshops in South Africa
participants were ‘excited about having
access to the 1:50,000 topographic maps,
which they felt helped to ‘offi cially’ confi
rm their personal social histories’. In a
study of parish mapping with village
community groups in Scotland, Wood
(2005) showed how participants
considered paper maps to be ‘fl at’ whereas
transferring mapped information to a PC
and linking it to attribute data enhanced the
sense of interactivity.
Participatory GIS, then, has the potential
to be both more enabling to those whom it
seeks to serve and to be misused in the
‘wrong’ hands as outside control and
surveillance are enhanced (Abbot ​et al.​,
1998; Stonich, 2002). ‘Getting on the map’
could mean public ac
knowledgement for marginalized groups
(McCall and Minang, 2005) or increased
con trol from outside (Abbot ​et al.,​ 1998) or
aspects of both. In seeking to reduce
power imbalances and external
interventions (which arise either directly
through GIS ‘professionals’ taking
excessive control or indirectly through data
being extracted by state or private
agencies)
the inputs and outputs should be processed
participatorily, in situ and as a deliberative
means of empowering local people (McCall,
2003). An optimistic view sees
empowerment at grassroots level
enhancing opportunities for political power
when dimensions of good governance are
addressed.
To be avoided, then, is a replication of
the situation with traditional Geographical
Information Systems where users ‘do GIS’
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622 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
privilege any one type of information but to
grant equal validity to all. In this way indi
genous technical knowledge can grant
poorer groups an equivalent standing to
outsiders (McCall, 2003) and in
participatory spatial planning such
knowledge ‘may be the only resource that
in a sociopolitical vacuum. McCall (2003)
warns of the dangers of indigenous spatial
knowledge following the marketization route
of conventional geographical data. Good
governance through improved transparency
between people and state, and people and
private sector, should help the legitimacy of
local interests to be recognized (McCall and
Minang, 2005). It is incumbent on those
work ing on Participatory GIS then to adopt
a code of good practice, particularly so
given the ease with which digital
information can be garnered by others. In
this sense MacEachren (2000) suggests a
four-stage process involving assessment,
problem definition, decision making, and
follow-up while Rambaldi ​et al​. (2006) go
further and set out a series of ‘Who?’ type
questions around empowerment/dis
empowerment in the context of an ethical
PGIS. In this scheme informants are
consulted about disclosing spatial data,
and steps are implemented to ensure that
the outputs are understood by all. In
addition, it is incumbent upon researchers
to give due consideration to the political
implications of the information they extract
and disseminate and this may involve, for
example, avoiding questions to participants
about natural resources where those
questions would lead to forced displace
ment (Rambaldi ​et al.​ , 2006).
V Indigenous knowledge and spatial
‘accuracy’
In the process of representing different geo
graphical understandings and in attempting
to ‘reveal contradictions and similarities in
spatial thinking and activity’ (Williams and
Dunn, 2003: 394–95), PGIS seeks not to
the poorest groups control while their land,
property, resources, or labour are rapidly
appropriated’ (McCall, 2003: 559). But use
of this knowledge may also need to be
protected, for example, through a
contractual agreement between providers
and users (Rambaldi ​et al.​ , 2006).
‘Indigenous knowledge’ is, however, an
inherently intract able concept and Sillitoe
(1998) notes how the distinctions between
indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, (Cinderby and Forrester, 2005). In eliciting
popular knowledge and folk knowledge are indigenous knowledge through interviews,
blurred. Warren (1991: 1) equates Grenier (1998) notes how the physical
indigenous and local knowledge – presence of a map can be use
‘knowledge that is unique to a given culture ful as a prompt to encourage discussion of
or society’ – and contrasts it with ‘the inter a particular geographical area, and she de
national knowledge system generated by fines indigenous knowledge with reference
universities, research institutions, and to ‘the unique, traditional, local knowledge
private fi rms’ (Warren, 1991: 1). McCall existing within and developed around the
(2003: 559) highlights how indigenous specifi c conditions of women and men indi
technical know genous to a particular geographic area’
ledge is ‘embodied knowledge to be seen (Grenier, 1998: 1).
as a local resource that belongs to rural In contrasting indigenous knowledge
and urban people both as individuals and and scientifi c knowledge, McCall and
com munities. It should not be denigrated Minang (2005) comment that ‘indigenous
only as primitive, unassimilated, and technical knowledge is normally more
outside of the market’. Of critical relevance reliable, and may
in the present context is the extent to be also more accurate, because it
which this local and indigenous knowledge embodies generations of practical
can be portrayed in a spatial way and essential knowledge, and it operates in
through the use of GIS. Passed down interactive, holistic systems’ (p. 343). In
through generations, indigenous integrating participatory geo
knowledge is expressed through, ​inter alia,​ graphical information with ‘offi cial’ spatially
stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, cultural referenced data from technical landmine
values and agricultural practices, and is sur veys, Williams and Dunn (2003) note
com municated orally (Grenier, 1998). how the conventional maps portrayed
While not exclusively geographical, much boundaries only for known minefi elds
indigenous technical knowledge has both while participatory maps provided
an embedded geographical context in complete spatial coverage and included
which the natural environment is central, areas which had been de-mined by
and specific spatial associations – for returning refugees. From the perspective
example, knowledge re of local communities, then, ‘offi cial’ data
lated to location of resources, were regarded as ‘inaccurate’ since their
environmental hazards, ecosystems and experiences were of widespread and
spatial correlations between groups and indiscriminate mining. Different notions of
resources (McCall, 2003). The thematic precision and ‘accuracy’ of information are
data layering properties of particularly important when the intention is
to integrate spatial data for relatively small
geographical scales with indigenous
knowledge from participatory maps drawn
GIS facilitate representation of multiple per at larger scales. As Craig ​et al. ​(2002a:
spectives and offer potential for portrayal of 368) assert, ‘PPGIS … redefi nes the
a holistic worldview of indigenous peoples meaning of “accuracy”’. While ‘precision
(McCall, 2003). Some local and indigenous should not be a requirement for entry into
knowledge, then, can be mapped and, the GIS world’ (Goodchild, 2002: xxii),
indeed, in some instances, this can be indistinct boundaries
highly spatially resolved, to the level of one
side of a road junction, for example

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​623


derived from participatory mapping
exercises, for example, should not be used
in the same way as spatially accurate and
precise lines from technical surveys
(Cinderby, 1999). Recent developments in
visualization techniques and mapping
software are relevant here, since
opportunities are now available to better
rep resent indigenous spatial knowledge by
avoid
ing representations through the use of fi
xed points and borders, and by using
instead fuzzy boundaries, soft zoning,
multi-user transparent overlays and
animation (McCall, 2003).
Central to representations of indigenous
knowledge in PGIS, though, are questions
around participatory research itself as
appro priate and relevant as a means of
bringing about desirable change. Some
have argued, particularly in a
‘development’ context, that this is far from
the case. Thus Kothari (2001) argues that
participatory development tech
niques serve to present ‘cleaned up’
versions of participants’ knowledge
through formal ized graphics: charts,
calendars and diagrams. That which does
not fi t is necessarily excluded and the
framework of visual representation
remains at the same time unquestioned
(Henkel and Stirrat, 2001). Cooke and
Kothari (2001) call for a deeper, more
sophisticated and rigorous refl exivity,
particularly in terms of the complexities of
power and power rela
tions, while Sanderson and Kindon (2004)
recommend an approach whereby partici
patory methods are negotiated ‘to
challenge and open-up the constitution of
possible knowledge’ (p. 125). Drawing on
work with New Zealand and Indian NGOs
they conclude that, rather than eliciting
local knowledge, participatory
development processes ‘produce
knowledge ​specific to their process and par
ticipants’​ (Sanderson and Kindon, 2004:
125, original emphasis).
The PGIS community has, for the most
part, focused on certain key aspects of the
concept of knowledge(s) – for example,
expert/local, spatiality, capture and
representation. Given the wide body of
social scientifi c literature on the nature of
knowledge, a deeper engagement by the
PGIS community is warranted. Ideas
which are based around knowledge refl ect
ing the context from which it comes, and as
being ‘relative’ to other dimensions such as
gender, ethnicity and class (Curry, 2005)
provide one potentially important foundation
for such an engagement. Uncertainty as an
inherent property of knowledge and know
ledge production has been emphasized by
Couclelis (2003), while Elwood (2006)
explores how participation in knowledge
production is negotiated in everyday
PPGIS practices. In arguing for a move
away from notions of indigenous
knowledge in GIS which regard
local/traditional environmental knowledge
either as confl icting with, or supplemental
to, offi cial/scientifi c information, Robbins
(2003) suggests instead a focus on the
partialities of all knowledge, the use of GIS
to explore the nature of knowledge
production itself and emphasis on
local/indigenous and scientifi c knowledge
as not being mutually exclusive. Similarly,
Elwood (2006) notes how research which
juxtaposes local knowledge against offi cial
knowledge can serve to conceal their
interrelationships in participatory research
practice. The similarities between
indigenous and scientific knowledge have
been noted both in terms of cognitive
structures, such as in resource
conservation, and functional connections
such as in the restricted use of sacred or
protected land (McCall and Minang, 2005).
This spatial and problem-orientated
technical indigenous or local knowledge,
which may be gendered, ‘sets people in
their environmental context by describing
activity spaces and responsibility spaces,
and uses an understood natural language’
(McCall and Minang, 2005: 343).
It is also important, though, to distinguish
those dimensions of indigenous knowledge
which fundamentally differ from scientific
knowledge: this is not technical knowledge
but rather ‘deep knowledge’ which places
cultural values on land and place, which is
manifested in fuzzy, emotional and holistic
terms (McCall and Minang, 2005) and
which may not fi t neatly into the spatially
precise demands of a GIS. But even here
there are
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624 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
ambiguities and a spatial element may be
relevant to the more elusive symbolic,
indigen ous knowledge. In this context,
Harmsworth (1998) uses GIS to store
layers of information on Maori
environmental values – eg, tribal
landmarks, sacred and ancestral sites, and
medicinal plants. In a promising approach
to avoiding information reaching those for
whom it was not intended, each layer has
attached to it a level of confidentiality and
access. Highly sensitive information is
given a label or fl ag to indicate restricted
access and in these cases the information
is linked via a directory to an alternative
source such as an individual person (eg, a
Maori elder) with traditional knowledge.
McCall (2003) adds illegal and ‘anti-social’
urban activities such as raves, prostitution
and street gangs to these ‘sensitive’
indigenous cultural actions although he
cautions against adopting an overly
protective approach which may serve to
safeguard existing elite privileges in situ
ations where secret or sacred knowledge is
directly linked to access to natural
resources such as land.
Part of the refl exivity of, and about, Partici
patory GIS should also be about the types
of information and knowledge which
cannot be objectified (let alone
represented spatially) as well as those
which can. Rundstrom (1995) is
fundamentally sceptical about reasons for
wanting to incorporate indigenous know
ledge into a system such as GIS and
argues that ‘the epistemological system
within which GIS is grounded is largely
incompat ible with the corresponding
systems of indi genous peoples’ (p. 55). He
argues instead for ‘the crucial value of not
telling, not writing, not encoding – the
value of not inscribing’ (p. 53), but he also
recognizes the possibility that ‘GIS may be
best understood as only another link in a
long, tangled chain of dialogue between
Western and indigenous peoples about
each other and the nature of the earth’ (p.
55). Similarly, McCall and Minang (2005:
343) argue that participatory spatial
planning in PGIS can ‘build
geo-information into the local knowledge
process’. Despite improved
representations of local spatial knowledge
in PGIS, however, it remains the case that
much indigenous knowledge is ‘tacit’
(Polanyi, 1944). This is the knowledge that
is accumulated but not systematized
(Polanyi, 1944). It is know
ledge which is indirect, intuitive, understood
and implied. Although there are degrees of
tacitness (Howells, 1996), this type of know
ledge cannot be represented by an informa
tion technology which relies on a spatial
framework.
VI Scaling up and democratizing
GIS: Global Participatory GIS
through the web?
If Participatory GIS research is to be policy
relevant, concerns are raised over the diffi -
culties of extending the fi ndings both spati
ally and in political and organizational terms
since many projects are locally based.
‘Scaling up’ involves not only linking
information from different geographical
scales to elicit regional, national or global
patterns but also, more importantly, being
able to elicit under standings of
human-environment relation ships (Stonich,
2002). Under decentralization, for
example, Participatory GIS could allow
local priorities to feed into regional policy
and planning if such priorities become more
widely communicated. Stonich (1998; 2002)
extends this idea by exploring the potential
to link community-level PPGIS into a global
PPGIS in an applied research project on a
global NGO coalition set up to resist
industrial shrimp farming in Asia, Latin
America and Africa. Scaling up in this
context presents particular challenges of
achieving consensus among members of a
coalition with diverse perspectives. The
 potential of PPGIS to in form activism at the
multinational level is also considered in
work by Sieber (2003) on transborder
PPGIS for conservation associ ations. She
advocates using PPGIS to help build
organizational capacity and coalitions as a
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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​625
people participating; expanding organiza
tional diversification by using GIS across a
range of applications; using GIS as a
means to attract funding; and combining
efforts through coalitions of users for
improved political action and in order to
wield greater infl uence through data
sharing and listservers.
Scaling up may not always be desirable com munication and political action
if, as Sieber (2003) asserts, the focus of (Stonich, 2002; Tang and Waters, 2005).
GIS is on increasingly large data sets In settings
where ‘GIS may play a role in generalizing
out people and places, even as it assists
larger organizations and coalitions. In
PPGIS, ‘bigger’ is neither ne
cessarily better nor more appropriate’ (p.
58). The struggle for balanced and just
outcomes is refl ected as ‘PPGIS attempts
to leverage larger – perhaps global –
connections while retaining local context’
(Sieber, 2003: 58). Aitken (2002) explores
the potential of PPGIS to enable local
issues to ‘jump scale’. Thus in work on
pollution-generating facilities and urban
poverty, community decision-making was
empowered at the local level while the
concept of ‘environmental racism’ was put
on a larger political agenda.
At one level, web-based GIS is the defi n
itive form of participatory and democratic
GIS since it has the potential, theoretically,
to reach a limitless number of people and
to elicit views rapidly and effi ciently.
Enablement of wide dissemination and
interactivity in decision-making led
Kingston ​et al. (​ 2000: 110) to go so far as
to suggest that ‘the previous criticisms of
GIS being an elitist technology (Pickles,
1995) may no longer be valid in the same
context’. Sieber (2003: 54) suggests that
‘PPGIS, by definition, succeeds when as
means of matching political power and
organizational scale to the scale of the
envir onmental issue, for example by:
widening the ‘reach’ in terms of increased
numbers of
many community members as possible
can utilize spatial information in the public
decision-making process’. Scaling up in
terms of access to Participatory GIS
through the internet releases the potential
for online public participation and
discussion, contribution to decision-making
processes through online decision support
systems, citizen feedback
for system improvement and enhanced
which are relatively well resourced, where
users are familiar with ICTs and western
spatial representations, and where project
organizational structures are formalized,
this approach potentially has a lot to offer,
as shown, for example, in work using
internet map servers for neighbourhood
environ mental inventories (Leitner ​et al.,​
2000) and in work by Kingston ​et al​. (2000)
as part of a university-local government
collaboration using a participatory online
planning system for environmental
decision-making with resi
dents in northern England. More intuitive
and, perhaps, pared-down versions of the
tech nology are increasingly required,
though, and in this context Haklay and
Tobon (2003) call for greater emphasis on
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in
PPGIS research. As well as their
educational benefi ts, web-based GIS
learning materials can also prove cheaper
than using traditional printed resources
where web access is good, as Bishop ​et al.​
(2002) demonstrate for South Africa.
Drawing on examples from local
government applications in Norway,
Berntzen ​et al. (​ 2005) demonstrate how
web-accessible GIS can be combined with
e-participation in which citizens collect and
 add data, and value, to a municipal GIS.
Ultimately their intention is to embed the
front end of such systems into other outlets
such as weblogs and GPS (Global
Positioning System). Clearly there are
issues of quality control and data currency,
and visually based information technology,
whether participatory or not, can easily be
used to give undue credit to ‘bad’ data
(Dunn ​et al.​, 1997). In this way web-based
GIS raise questions about the need for
gatekeepers, and system administrators
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626 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
of e-Government strategies, open-access
web-based GIS are subject to concerns
about the nature of the user community.
The notion of political weblogs as effective
tools for increasing participation and
creating new forms of online mobilization
and democratic literacies (rather than as
targets for political address and marketing)
is open to question (Griffi ths, 2004). Of
particular relevance here is the notion of
access: while blogs can benefi t from the
lack of need for traditional media
gatekeepers (Griffi ths, 2004), they also
assume internet availability. Although there
are not able similarities between debates
which take place through political weblogs
and partici pation through GIS, an
important distinction is the emphasis which
the latter places on constantly refl ecting
on who is participating, controlling, owning,
understanding, analyz
ing and benefi ting from the process (Abbot
et al.​, 1998; Rambaldi ​et al.​ , 2006). Griffi
ths (2004) expresses concerns that ‘while
there’s no doubting the scale of
participation in the blogosphere or its
democratic potential, the personalizing
features of the blog seem to give support
to the idea that new media is individuating
citizens or causing small like minded
groups to form’ (p. 156). As Warf (2001)
argues, not only is it a ‘fantasy’ that the
internet is, or could be, available to all, but
internet access is also subject to ‘the
institutional and cultural forces that entice
can play crucial roles for example in
controlling discussion groups through
permissions and passwords (Tang and
Waters, 2005).
Although there is enormous potential to
widen participation in terms of sheer
numbers of users, important questions
remain, notably ‘what kind of users and
where?’ and ‘what kind of participation?’ In
the same way that Blakemore (2005)
draws attention to the uneven spatial and
demographic citizen uptake
and encourage people to remain digitally
connected’ (p. 16). For
analytic-deliberative decision-making and
public participation the web does not yet
provide ‘anywhere and anytime’ work
(Nyerges, 2005). In addition, although web
based GIS allow non-experts to visualize
and manage geographical data interactively
there are still technical demands of the user
in terms of basic GIS skills (Tang and
Waters, 2005). For Merrick (2003), in a
criticism of internet mapping interfaces,
‘participation requires at least a cursory
understanding of the importance of spatial
concepts, spatial implications, and spatial
data’ (p. 35). With out such understanding,
she argues, users could become ​less
empowered. Working with
community-based organizations and
schools she notes how users found
Internet Map Servers (IMS) ‘manipulative
and frustrating’ after being exposed to a
fully fledged and ‘controllable’ GIS such as
ESRI’s ArcView.
In ‘traditional’ Participatory GIS appli
cations, the project researchers, being ‘on
the ground’, have a greater (if not
complete) sense of who is included and
who is excluded. In web-based
approaches, there are fewer opportunities
to draw in those without tech nological
access or skills. In addition, since
web-based applications are likely to include
‘occasional’ and/or anonymous users, new
sets of challenges are presented for PPGIS
 providers in terms of their role in
developing community relationships,
training, processing data and interpreting
findings (Wong and Chua, 2001). In a
university-community par tnership project
on development in deprived
neighbourhoods in West Philadelphia,
Wong and Chua (2001) found the
demands of com munity outreach to be diffi
cult to maintain in terms of project staff
time and resources. Without these
relationships they argue that ‘a web-based
PPGIS may run the risk of pro viding
services that the public does not want’ (p.
74). Some of the characteristics of the user
base can, however, prove advantageous
and, for a village-based case study in
northern England, Kingston ​et al. (​ 2000)
and Kingston (2002) note how anonymity
enables ‘non threatening’ interaction
compared to the personal identifi cation
and confrontation of public meetings. In
this way, a web-based system can enable
those voices which are less often heard in
traditional forms of public participation.
Issues of data copyright are paramount,
not least in terms of cost (Kingston ​et al.​,
2000) while issues of confi dentiality are
also critical. Building researcher-participant
relationships around commitment and
clarifying expecta
tions is crucial, yet it is unlikely that notions
of trust can be developed in the
non-personal environment of the web
(Wong and Chua, 2001). This relationship
is interdependent and some user
responses may not be verifi able.

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​627

under standing the needs of the user in a
web-based environment, technical
That said, Carver (2003) argues that in a opportunities are pre sented through
broader context openness and enhanced animation, hypermaps, digital libraries,
accountability in decision-making may dynamic sketching (MacEachren, 1998)
serve instead to enhance a sense of trust. and navigable virtual environments
Questions also remain around the ease (or (Dykes, 2000). At the same time,
otherwise) of reaching consensus in a development of the internet has also
web-based decision support environment. enabled GIS concepts to become ‘more
An online system could serve to optimize open, accessible, and mobile to everyone
the potential for agreement, given the thereby facilitating notions such as
opportunities to experiment with different democratization of spatial data, open
scenarios. Alternatively, an excessive accessibility, and effective dissemination’
amount of digital information and spatial (Dragic´evic´, 2004: 79). This may call for a
repre sentations may confuse or mislead reworking of the ways in which GIS and
(Shiffer, 2002) and much depends on how PGIS have been defi ned and
decisions are formulated (Kingston, 2002). conceptualized, particularly as interaction
In the same way that Participatory GIS is with digital spatial information increasingly
not a replacement for more traditional becomes part of everyday experience for
public participation processes and many non-expert users, notably through
participatory re search (Abbot ​et al.​, 1998; products such as Google Maps, Google
Carver, 2003), it could be argued that Earth and NASA’s World Wind (Butler,
web-based PPGIS en hances and diversifi 2006). Such ‘virtual globe’ tools are
es, rather than replaces, the role of more incorporating increasing levels of
established forms of PPGIS (Wong and interactivity and data manipulation,
Chua, 2001). ICTs and spatial information increasing
systems are evolving rapidly, how ever, the potential for improved democratization
and users are increasingly demanding 3D of GIS and active participation. As Longley
visualizations and process simulation (2000) warns in the context of the explosion
(Gold, 2006). With increasing focus on of digital data, however, we should be
 cautious that such newly created visions of
the world have meaning and are not
‘triumphs of gloss over substance’ (p. 41).
Negroponte (1995) argues optimistically for
a digital age whose ‘decentralizing,
globalizing, harmonizing and empowering’
elements will result in its ‘ultimate triumph’
(p. 229). But even he acknowledges that
‘as we move toward such a digital world,
an entire sector of the population will be or
feel disenfranchised’ (p. 228). The ability of
the non-expert to inte grate information
from diverse sources and create visual and
tabular output may repre
sent ‘democratization of the knowledge
production process’ (Couclelis, 2003: 167)
but it also lacks assurance regarding the
quality of the knowledge products
themselves (Couclelis, 2003).
One vision then is of a ubiquitous GIS,
available to millions of people via web con
nections from desktop PCs. As Goodchild
(2000) comments ‘on [sic] the order of 10​7
people make regular use of GIS-​like
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628 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
individual and community empowerment –
an analytical as opposed to largely visual
process; an interventionist approach which
actively rather than passively seeks citizen
involvement; and a community-based as
opposed to individualist ethos. The aim
then is to democratize the process of
engaging with GIS, and with each other to
promote desirable change through
collective control and action. These are
issues with which GIScience needs to be
more closely engaged. In this respect,
recent developments in geocollaborative
tools which integrate geospatial technology
with tools such as shared whiteboards,
large screen displays and discussion
boards offer promising ways forward for
more sophisticated human-computer
dialogue and human-human collaboration
(MacEachren ​et al.​, 2005; Schafer ​et al.​,
2005).
VII Sustainability and skills
services offered over the WWW’
(Goodchild, 2000: 6, my emphasis). In this
way individuals can access information
systems which have a spatial element
such as fi nding the shortest travel route
from their home to a specific destination,
using a GPS on a hiking trip, or ‘flying’
above a three-dimensional virtual globe.
But is this really GIS at its most em
powering? Rather this has the makings of a
populist GIS (Goodchild, 2000), one which
is often an individual and largely visual
process, creating something of an illusion
of geo graphical knowledge dissemination.
This may represent one version of
technology democratization through its
(near) ubiquity, but what of political
engagement and col lective
decision-making? Rather than the
‘democratization of GIS’ through this route,
it would seem that technologizing of deliber
ative democracy through Participatory GIS
currently offers a more effective path
towards
It seems self-evident that the success (or
otherwise) of Participatory GIS applications
should be properly evaluated and their
longer term impact assessed through
follow-up studies. Indeed, Jordan (2002:
243) goes as far as saying that ‘without
detailed system atic evaluation, PPGIS
could easily fall into the trap of combining
sloppy GIS practices with sloppy social
science’. Such an evaluation may be far
from straightforward and, because much
relies on ‘measuring’ change, may be why
it has largely been avoided. Perhaps, as
Aitken (2002) asserts, an effective PPGIS
is one which politicizes issues of local
concern. Thus, if we view PPGIS as a
process (of em
powerment, motivation, local capacity build
ing) as much as, or more than, a product it
becomes diffi cult to ‘measure’ (Jordan,
2002; Meredith ​et al.​, 2002). In building
local capacity for sustainable development
in a case study south of Mexico City,
Meredith ​et al. (​ 2002) demonstrate how,
through community map-making by mural
painting, the anticipated goals of a PPGIS
project may be achieved before the GIS
system is even set up. Much depends on
understanding the politics and power
relations in which PPGIS is
set (Weiner ​et al.​, 2002) and, as Kyem
(2001) highlights, the evaluation of a PGIS
approach is implicitly encumbered by
difficulties in defining and evaluating
empowerment. It remains clear, though,
that political integration into local
infrastructures is a prerequisite for
empowerment (Weiner ​et al.​, 2002). Of key
relevance to evaluation are dimensions of
participation, access and data (Jordan,
2002; Laituri, 2002; Tulloch and Shapiro,
2003) and in this way a taxonomy of
successful and un successful case studies
can be devised in which cases are classifi
ed according to participatory activities and
who participates (Tulloch, 2003; Tulloch
and Shapiro, 2003). Barndt (2002) outlines
three major evaluation guidelines for
PPGIS projects: understanding the value of
the results in terms of providing appropriate
and timely information upon which organ
izations can usefully act; managing projects
to be sustainable and properly integrated
into the activities of relevant organizations;
and consensus to support a local working
system with appropriate community
capacity building in the context of wider,
and tangible, development strategy plans.
Specifi c means of evaluation include
social cost-benefi t an alyses (Jordan,
2002), systematic social behavioural
research (Nyerges ​et al.,​ 2002) and
meeting criteria for good governance
(McCall and Minang, 2005) while, in evalu
ating the effi ciency, effectiveness and
equity (empowerment) associated with
community multipurpose land information
systems (MPLIS), Tulloch and Epstein
(2002) adopt a traditional economic
analytical approach.
Given that PPGIS as a methodology
involves much more than GIS, and the
level of spatial analysis tends, in any case,
to be relatively simple, some authors
(Craig ​et al.,​ 2002a) have begun to
question the future role of GIS ​per se
in PPGIS. The different notions of
‘accuracy’ which Participatory GIS calls for
maintain that many of the sophisticated
spatial operations which are embedded in
a conventional GIS toolbox are
inappropriate and, indeed, un
necessary. Thus, where many of the spatial
analytical capabilities of GIS remain
unused

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​629

decision-makers may find the output more
credible and convincing than, say, the
in Participatory GIS, GIS can become an detailed depth of material from participatory
expensive and potentially divisive means of research methods alone or the apparent
representing local knowledge (King, 2002). crudeness of sketch maps drawn as part of
It is crucial to question whether a local Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
Participatory GIS provides an appropriate exercise.
means of achieving desirable change As Barndt (1998) reminds us, successful
when this may be achieved by techniques public participation is not simply about tech
such as participatory mapping alone nical issues such as hardware and
(Abbot ​et al.​ , 1998). A ‘checklist’ of software: ‘GIS is not the center of the
questions to be addressed before public partici pation universe’ (Barndt,
embarking on a PGIS approach is 1998: 105). Since even a Participatory GIS
essential, the critical issue being: who may not necessarily be a contextually
gains and who loses (Abbot ​et al.​ , 1998)? appropriate GIS, there is an argument for
A Participatory GIS approach may offer a other starting points and different types of
potential compromise in that policy and organizations shaping their own GIS. This
calls for a ‘closer coupling’ of users and
software design. Sieber (2000) argues for
greater transferral of power in the design
and development of GIS by advocating
that grassroots organizations actively
shape GIS to meet their needs. In so
doing, GIS becomes intrinsic to the social
practice of such organizations and
engenders a sense of ownership. The
likelihood of success of such a strategy
depends to a large extent on the local
context, however, and, as Sieber (2000)
acknowledges, a degree of technical
knowledge is implied. Many early critiques
of GIS characteristically ignored the critical
agency (gender, race, cultural identity) of
those who use GIS and, hence, the
possibilities for transforming dominant GIS
practices (Kwan, 2002b). As Kwan (2002c:
262) states, ‘change will not occur through
trenchant
critiques alone, but through everyday
struggle with the technology in GIS labs or
“sites” of all kinds’. Capacity (skills)
building and blurring of role boundaries are
likely to be benefi cial in developing a more
inclusive GIS and should help to foster an
institutional culture in which the
technocratic solution is not always seen as
the fi rst and only way. Thus environmental
activists may also operate as GIS software
developers while GIS researchers could
usefully work in NGOs (Sieber, 2004) or
multinational organizations (Williams and
Dunn, 2003). In addition, national
information policies can be shaped to bring
about change for the better by educational
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630 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
GIS in community organizations in the City
of Philadelphia, Casey and Pederson
(2002) found that the rapid turnover of
Community Development Corporation
(CDC) staff with GIS skills meant that GIS
use was ‘insignifi cant’ at the CDC level.
Such changes are likely to matter less in
the commercial GIS world where staff are
relatively easy to replace, where local
context, politics and organizations are
processes which teach students to
recognize the limitations of GIS and
geographical information (Dunn ​et al.​ ,
1999). The NCGIA Santa Barbara
Varenius Workshop called attention to the
need to educate users and potential users
as a ‘mandate for PPGIS’ (Craig ​et al.,​
1999) and important challenges are raised,
given that users may need both technical
GIS skills and familiarity with participatory
methods. In this sense, Tulloch and
Epstein (2002) point to the need for
leadership from academics and
practitioners versed in both technology and
social science. Merrick (2003) has adopted
an approach to training grassroots
organizations with a focus on citizen
empowerment, critical thinking and
questioning the data, analysis and outputs.
Weiner and Harris (2003: 70) comment
that they are ‘less than optimistic’ that their
work on community-integrated GIS in post
apartheid South Africa will have a long-term
continuity in the local context. Transitions in
government have meant changes in policy
and personnel at national and regional
levels which subsequently impact on
sustainability of a locally based GIS.
Similarly, diffi culties of retaining staff with
GIS skills in public sector or non-profi
t-making organizations can have particular
impacts (Sieber, 2003) and even the
presence of ‘a strong local organization’,
as advocated by McCall (2003: 566) as a
preventative countermeasure, is not a guar
antee against staff losses. In a project
using
given less emphasis, and where less rests
on championing ideas about participation.
VIII New approaches and future
prospects: cooperation and feminist GIS
Many early exchanges around the social
implications of GIS and its place in
geography as a discipline (Taylor, 1990;
Openshaw, 1991; 1992; Taylor and
Overton, 1991; Smith, 1992; Lake, 1993)
were characteristically unhelpful and often
unnecessarily polemic, dividing opinion
into two camps and conse quently
squeezing out alternative positions
(Rundstrom, 1995). More recent debates
have been characterized by less of a dichot
omy and a more mature and constructive
integration of different ways of understand
ing and applying geographical information
and GIS. Two interrelated points emerge
from this more optimistic position. First, it
can be argued that debates around a more
inclusive and democratic type of GIS have
played a key role in actively bringing about
this more accommodating perspective.
Second, the more cooperative approach
may have the potential to help Participa
tory GIS practitioners avoid some of the
critiques around participatory methods
more generally. Indeed, since alternative
forms of GIS form a focus for inquiry based
on both process and practice, prospects
may be good for a more theoretically
informed ‘GIS-2’. Participatory GIS
practitioners, unlike some of their
counterparts in conventional GIS arenas,
are acutely aware of social theorists’
critiques and the contradictory nature of the
approach so that, as MacEachren (2000:
448) notes, ‘researchers who are
developing
PPGIS or studying its use are as likely to
be GIScience “outsiders” as “insiders”’.
There is a further recent and important de
velopment with respect to alternative
visions of GIS which has a number of
resonances in the context of the present
discussion and demonstrates clear
opportunities for PGIS to make a stronger
impression within human geography. This
development supports the notion
articulated by Pavlovskaya (2002: 287)
that ‘GIS … can be employed within
non-positivist epistemologies’ and comes
from what at fi rst sight may appear a
surpris ing corner of the discipline. Recent
work has begun to explore the potential
links between GIS and feminist geography,
arguing that feminist-driven involvement in
developing GIS can bring about critical
practices which accord with feminist
epistemologies (Kwan, 2002a; 2002c).
This work has a number of parallels with
the concepts which frame Par ticipatory
GIS, notably the recognition that both
quantitative and qualitative methods and
information can exist in the same
organizational system; that there is room
for a grounded, contextualized and
reflexive GIS; and that such a GIS seeks to
uncover local knowledges and power
imbalances. A feminist critique of GIS is
proposed as one which is constructive and
caring, and, crucially, one which is en
gaged in the practices of the technology
(Schuurman and Pratt, 2002). The
increasing use of ethnographic materials in
digital form, not only in feminist geography,
but in social and cultural geography more
broadly, is not only an indication of the
potential for blurring of Participatory GIS
and feminist GIS but may also help pave
the way for engagement between two
geographies which currently remain in
separate worlds (Kwan, 2002a): GIS and
critical geographies. The narrow dualist
thinking which lies behind those who
envision GIS as a place only for
quantitative analysis has served to
demonstrate GIS as inherently problematic
(Schuurman and Pratt, 2002) and, in doing
so, has suppressed ideas around GIS as
part of a critical analysis (Kwan, 2002b).

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Christine E. Dunn: Participatory GIS – a people’s GIS? ​631

which geographical information can be
displayed and analyzed. There is an
While in commercial environments there argument, therefore, to ensure that
are fewer incentives or opportunities to software developments refl ect more
engage with notions of a ‘social’ GIS, large strongly ideas around geographical
software developers retain a powerful information as fuzzy, ambiguous and
position in setting agendas for the ways in incomplete. In this con text Sieber (2004)
advocates a ‘rewiring’ of current GIS
technology in which the software code is
rewritten with a less rigid geometry and
more opportunities for participation and
representation of complexity and disagree
ment. Early attempts to move towards a
‘GIS/2’ in this way include Kwan’s (1998;
1999) study of women’s mobility and
access in the city of Columbus, Ohio, for
which she developed algorithms specifi c
to the research questions posed on
space-time access. Not available in
standard GIS software, these algorithms
exposed gender differences which
conventional measures of space-time
access obscured. More recent approaches
to develop ing GIS/2 include Sieber’s
(2004) ‘rebuilding’ of GIS through a
systems-design approach which draws on
current developments in computer science.
This seeks to model different ways of
knowing by using markup languages which
enable retention of narrative richness and
allow text or objects to be given tags
relating to, for example, class, cultural
status, power relations or gender.
With proprietary GIS and related systems
ever more affordable and available in more
accessible forms (eg, mobile GIS using
hand held devices, in-vehicle navigation,
web based GIS, GPS for transect walks),
and with the near future likely to bring
merging of technologies such as GIS, the
internet, virtual reality and mobile
communications systems (MacEachren,
2000), we are poised at an interesting time
for potential future directions of GIS and
participation. There are opportunities for
conventional GIS tech nology to be
replicated ‘as is’ to a large public, and/or
for more innovative and socially
aware approaches to capitalize on this
wider distribution. The latter include an
enhanced citizen input to the design and
application of GIS as it becomes
increasingly available through more
accessible routes such as cell
phone technology (Rugg, 2003). Carver
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632 ​Progress in Human Geography 31(5)
(2003) and Kingston (2002) recommend
exploration of opportunities for
Participatory GIS to be used in media such
as digital television and wireless
communications. Internet-type tele
vision channels obviate the need to have
access to a computer and may also provide
public information and online voting
services (Kingston, 2002). This type of
participatory democracy was used by
Ventura ​et al. ​(2002) in a land-use
decision-making project for Wisconsin,
USA, whereby citizens used the web to
take part in an electronic town hall
meeting. Responses from elected officials
were broadcast simultaneously on local
cable television and radio, as well as the
website. Innovative approaches to these
newer and more mobile forms of ICT do
not necessarily demand a highly IT-literate
user-base. Thus, in an innovative use of
palm-top computers to collect information
for conservation work in South Africa,
Liebenberg ​et al. ​(1999) de scribe how
non-literate national park rangers and
trackers collect georeferenced informa tion
on wildlife sightings in the fi eld, prior to
transferring the data to a base-station PC.
The introduction of computer technology
has given kudos to the trackers and
generated recognition of their expertise. A
similar pro ject with traditional hunters and
trackers in Botswana has, however,
created a degree of community resentment
and confl ict around resource access
(Louis Liebenberg, personal
communication).
In devising prospects for an alternative
framework for the next wave of
Participatory GIS there is also an ongoing
need to consider the optimal degree of
coupling, both in terms of people and
practice. These are, of course, interrelated,
but the research reviewed here suggests
two potential directions. First, that there is
a need for closer coupling between users
and GIS design. Blurring of roles and
envisaging different types of user to those
engaged with conventional GIS are likely to
shape more publicly orientated packages.
Second, participatory methods and GIS
tech
nology itself should be kept fairly loosely
coupled. There are, of course, ​degrees ​of
coupling and, in the loosest sense, this may
simply involve using participatory research
methods to qualify GIS analysis and
outputs (see, for example, Pain ​et al​.,
2006). Thus, just as Kwan (2002a) argues
that while still recog nizing the limitations of
GIS data models ‘feminist geographers
can ​appropriate ​GIS methods’ (p. 653,
original emphasis), the cur
rent paper suggests that a GIS which is
vested in the interests of the people (as
defi ned by them) through an approach
based on ‘GIS in participatory research’
may be more success
ful and achievable than a truly ‘Participatory
GIS’.
Finally, exploration of the social per
spectives around GIS can be regarded as
a hallmark of a maturing technology; an
enhanced GIS as an effective medium for
communication (Schuurman, 2003). There
remains, though, a question over the extent
to which the mainstream GIS and
GIScience literature is both driving and refl
ecting recent developments in the social
aspects of GIS. With system development
of proprietary GIS falling mainly in the
realm of computer scientists rather than
geographers, Longley (2000) warns of the
dangers for the health of the discipline of
Geography. Schuurman and Kwan (2004)
comment on an increasing prominence in
the last 5–10 years given to scientifi c and
technical GIS research at the expense of
papers on the social and political
dimensions of GIScience. They relate this
to a reduction in published research on
critiques of GIS and call for a new ‘socially
engaged GIScience’ (p. 2). Given its
democratizing potential, Participatory GIS
should be well placed to fi ll some of this
gap, and an optimistic view is one in which
PGIS research moves towards centre
stage in the mainstream GIS publication
outlets. A darker vision is one
where more democratic forms of GIS act as
fuel for another academic battleground. In
this context, it is worth returning to the
cautions of the early pioneers in
Participatory GIS who, while remaining
optimistic for its future, warn that ‘efforts to
hear the voices of “ordinary” people and
“capture local knowledge” are well
intentioned, but in many instances these
are forms of ​participation for publication,​ in
which academics undertake research to pro
duce books and journal articles while
leaving the subject communities with little
(if any) tangible benefi ts’ (Harris and
Weiner, 2002: 248, original emphasis).
This scenario seems depressingly likely
given the current climate, at least in the
UK, of pressure to publish research in
outlets which practitioners are unlikely to
access. In this context, it is worth
highlighting the basic tenet that
‘participatory approaches did not originate
as a methodology for re search, but as a
process by which communities can work
towards change’ (Pain and Francis, 2003:
46).
Notes
1. Wherever possible in this paper, in referring to the
literature, the specific terminology of individual
authors is retained. Elsewhere, for convenience,
the general term ‘Participatory GIS’ is used.
2. Clark Labs, Clark University, Worcester,
Massachusetts, USA, developers of IDRISI GIS
and Image Processing software.
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